Jason Collins is the first, but not the last

On Monday, Jason Collins, a centre who played for the Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards this past NBA season, announced that he is gay. Media outlets everywhere are proclaiming him to be the “first active player in one of the four major U.S. pro sports leagues” to be openly gay. While we can certainly quibble about the use of the term “active” — Collins is 34 years old, has never been very productive, and is a free agent this off-season, so there’s no guarantee he’ll ever play in the NBA again — Collins is definitely a rarity in NBA circles. With Collins’ announcement, the number of openly gay men to have played NBA basketball has doubled. The only other openly gay former NBA player is John Amaechi, another unproductive journeyman centre, who came out in 2007, four years after his last NBA game. Are there many closeted NBA players, or are there simply not very many gay players in the NBA?

I think the answer to this question is pretty obvious, but, given our focus on stats and numbers here at the Wages of Wins, why don’t we try to use some numbers?

Demographics

The demographics of homosexuality is not exactly clear cut. There are a variety of estimates ranging from 3% to 8% or more, and everything in between. Surveys that ask people to guess what percentage of the population is gay put that number even higher, at around 20%. The whole issue is rather tricky, because the definition of “homosexual” is somewhat vague. If you are attracted to both men and women, but more attracted to men, does that make you gay? If you’ve only had heterosexual relationships, haven’t felt comfortable with them, but haven’t had any homosexual relationships, are you gay? What if you’ve had 20 heterosexual experiences and one homosexual experience. Does that mean you are gay? In truth, human sexuality is more of a spectrum than a binary, which is why it is so hard to pinpoint an exact figure.

But let’s put all that aside for a moment and use very basic estimates. If the demographics of NBA sexuality is like that of the general population, we’d expect between 3%-8% of NBA players to be gay. For the moment, let’s humour those who argue that the NBA is more heterosexual than the general population, and pick a very conservative low estimate of 1.5%. But we’ll stick with 8% for the high estimate. How many players do these estimates give us? Here are the numbers for the last 14 seasons:

Year

NBA Players

Est. # of Gay Players (low)

Est. # of Gay Players (high)

1999-00

439

6.6

35.1

2000-01

441

6.6

35.3

2001-02

440

6.6

35.2

2002-03

428

6.4

34.2

2003-04

442

6.6

35.4

2004-05

464

7.0

37.1

2005-06

458

6.9

36.7

2006-07

458

6.9

36.7

2007-08

451

6.8

36.1

2008-09

445

6.7

35.6

2009-10

442

6.6

35.4

2010-11

452

6.8

36.2

2011-12

478

7.2

38.2

2012-13

469

7.0

37.5

Average

450.5

6.8

36.0

In any given year, it is very likely that there are between 7 and 36 gay players playing in the NBA. According to Basketball-Reference, a combined 4137 players have played in the NBA, BAA, and ABA since 1947. Using our estimates, that means that there have probably been between 62 and 331 gay players in the history of the NBA. And using sophisticated statistical tools, I can tell you that 2 is a much smaller number than 62 or 331. So it is almost 100% certain that the NBA has several more closeted gay players. Why aren’t these players open about their sexuality?

Don’t believe that? In 2007, in response to Amaechi’s coming out, former NBA All-Star Tim Hardaway said the following:

“You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don’t like gay people and I don’t like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don’t like it. It shouldn’t be in the world or in the United States.”

Comments like those explain why the only two NBA players who have come out have been on the fringe of the NBA. Amaechi was retired when he came out, so he didn’t have to worry about locker room comments or being ignored by teammates on the court. Collins is a 34 year old free agent, and given his body of work, there’s a very good chance that he won’t be playing in the NBA next year. The real question is how long it will take for the NBA to have an openly gay player who has an impact on the court.

That is the real test for the NBA and the other professional sports. Because there are certainly more more gay athletes who are in the closet and waiting to come out. We can only hope that the reaction Collins has received will encourage these more prominent athletes to go public. Because the thing that is really going to start changing people’s minds is when sport heroes start coming out.

Have to point out that Hardaway has come around, to the extent that he’s been part of equal rights campaigns like the Trevor Project, apologized in a seemingly honest way for his earlier beliefs, and even called Collins to congratulate him.

Also, I know it’s not the right feeling to have, but can Bruce Bowen please come the hell out already? Based on the hilarious awkward Valentine’s day flower/chocolate ads on the NBA Lockdown podcast, he’s definitely gay. Not that gay people don’t celebrate valentine’s with flowers or chocolate, just because he sounded so bizarre talking about doing something romantic for ‘your girl’. And I know, Bruce Bowen sounds incredibly awkward talking about anything, but this was so far beyond his normally Magic-level broadcasting incompetence.

‘
Hardaway said, “I just wanted to go in and get educated, that’s all. Get educated on what I said and why I said those things. I’m working on understanding it now. I’m not really trying to make amends. I’ve been there trying to get help. I had no idea how much I hurt people. A lot of people. I have taken steps and I’m happy that I did. If I didn’t, I’d still be naive about it, ignorant about the whole thing. But I can talk about it now. I’m a polite person. That’s how I am.”
‘

One thing you’ve got to remember when applying population-level statistics to smaller groups is whether the group can be considered a representative sample of the population. In terms of the NBA, there couldn’t be a less representative sample of the U.S. male population if you went to Mars. Maybe tall, strong men are genetically closer to homosexuality on the spectrum than the general population and most NBA players are in the closet. Maybe not. Probably not.

If homosexuality is a choice, then it’s more likely that any given man or woman will be closer to one side of the spectrum (and the world at large would act as a superset to the NBA because of our shared humanity), even though the hypermasculine atmosphere is probably going to make the population suffer from self-selection bias, where those who don’t feel comfortable with their preferences will simply step out altogether sometime along the path to the highest level of basketball.

On the other hand, if it is genetic, the set of NBA players (or prospective NBA players with the physical and mental tools who were knocked out of the pool because of injury or lack of nurture) is still extremely unlikely to be a representative subset of the general population. Viewing this problem through the lens of natural selection, the members of a population that are the biggest, fastest, strongest, and physically most likely to survive are also likely (in nature especially) be prone to contributing to the gene pool. And their choices of mates would be the most physically fit and attractive females of the species with more than sufficient child bearing hips. NBA players do love their honeys.

I really hate to turn this into something it’s not. However, I think the perceived level of homophobia in the US is WILDLY overestimated. Yes, there are religious people that think homosexual behavior is immoral, an affront to God, or think marriage should only be a spiritual joining of man and woman under God. But that’s a much different thing than hating them (and I do understand there is a very small percentage of both religious and non religious people that hate).

In fact, hate and intolerance are ANTI-Christian. It’s “disapproval” that’s OK. “Theoretically”, religious people don’t approve of lot of things they not only tolerate, but do themselves quite frequently. lol

So I don’t quite get why everyone is not coming out at this point. If I was gay I certainly would. I also don’t understand why the media is giving him so much praise for doing so. These, days, I honestly think it’s harder for Tim Tebow to talk publicly about his strong religious devotion and seemingly literal beliefs than it is for a gay man or woman to talk about their sexual preferences. Come out, you are a hero. Believe the bible literally, you are a pariah or told to keep that kind of thing to yourself and not preach morality.

There’s one major problem with this so-called “science”. The 3%-8% figures are for the GENERAL population. However, the NBA is pretty much anything BUT the general population. In case you’re unaware, there’s a strong correlation between prenatal hormones and sexual orientation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_hormones_and_sexual_orientation . Prenatal hormones also happen to be the type of thing that causes instances of gigantism, and on a more minor scale, long appendages (you know, the sort of thing that happens to benefit NBA players). While I wouldn’t care to guess the number of gay players in the NBA (could be more or less, who knows) what I can say is that extrapolating figures for a general population to a very physiologically different population is just sloppy, sloppy science. Before anyone even asks, I’m just taking umbrage with the methods being used here; I am not a bigot and I fully support Jason Collins for coming out.

As someone who is, presumably, heteronormative, it might be difficult for you to understand that, to someone who’s gay, “What you’re doing is wrong and you shouldn’t do it and you’re going to go to hell if you don’t stop” is pretty much hatred. Hell, I’m not gay and I don’t believe in any of that stuff, and I still think that’s offensive.

And sure, it’s not like those people are coming up with that crap by themselves just because they dislike gay people, but you could say exactly the same about people who thought that black people were subhuman; it wasn’t as though their hatred of blacks led them to make up stupid (and offensive) theories; it just made it easy for them to accept and subscribe to those obviously stupid ideas.

Look, it’s hard to argue with religious belief, but anyone who claims that they’re offended by (or concerned about) another person’s sexual orientation is a poor christian. There’s pretty much one line in the old testament that sorta/kinda prohibits homosexuality; there are many more prohibitions that today’s christians simply ignore. There’s a lot more text from the new testament (which, in the eyes of basically every christian, supersedes the old testament) telling people that it’s not our place to judge, that everyone sins and can be forgiven, and that we should all love each other. The fact that many christians emphasize the prohibition on homosexuality above almost everything else in the bible is evidence of their homophobia or their sheep-like nature.

The difference between Collins and Tebow is that Collins isn’t saying, “Hey, everyone, I’m gay and you should consider becoming gay. I’m going to just start kissing dudes on the court to show you how gay I am aaaaaalll the time, because Gay Is Great!”

He’s just being honest about who he is, in an article and in interviews. There’s no parallel in their behavior.

The difference between Collins and Tebow is that Collins isn’t saying, “Hey, everyone, I’m gay and you should consider becoming gay. I’m going to just start kissing dudes on the court to show you how gay I am aaaaaalll the time, because Gay Is Great!”

He’s just being honest about who he is, in an article and in interviews. There’s no parallel in their behavior.

There are loads of things that are routinely done in this world I think are unethical, intrinsically immoral, not in the best interests of society, unjust etc… In all cases, I don’t hate the people even though I’ve been known to criticize some behaviors on blogs and forums etc.. (well maybe I hate a few people on Wall ST, but that’s a long story). I tolerate the behavior because it is legal and I’m not the final judge. I could easily be wrong. In no case are my views based on religious conviction. I am agnostic. But even if they were religious, I should be allowed to express those views openly without worrying about retribution, career issues etc..

That’s what religious folks are doing.

They are saying they believe things like abortion, homosexuality, etc… are intrinsically immoral and an affront to God the same way they think that stealing, murder, adultery etc… are sins. As an agnostic, my views come from internal thought. For them, it comes from scripture. In neither case is hate a part of it, except for a few extremists of the type we see on all issues, and that is not to be tolerated.

If we are going to preach tolerance, we have to tolerate all views, even the ones we disagree with strongly. The idea is not to encourage gays to come out of the closet while simultaneously putting Christians, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and others in a different closet.

On the other point, I don’t recall reading about Tebow preaching during press conferences, in the locker room, on the field etc… . He may have answered direct questions, but that’s about it. He was getting trashed from some folks because his politically incorrect views were well known from statements he made in appropriate settings and because he dared pray and make the sign of the cross after a touchdown in thanks to God.

I don’t know where you’re from, (NYC?) but where I’m from in the south, there’s more than a little underlying/overlying homophobia. Like everywhere in the country it’s trending in a positive direction, but let’s not even pretend that Tebow catches as much daily heat for his religious beliefs as Collins will for his homosexuality. You’re right in this reguard, no one will publicly speak out against Collins for fear of public shaming but there’s a difference between what he’s gonna hear privately vs what we all will hear broadcast over the tv and radio. To be the first takes a lot of bravery.

The views of the Westboro Baptist Church come from scripture. Are they “extremists”?

Morality has come so very very far to put any stock in a roughly 2000 year old book. Secular reasoning is what drives the development of morality. While I would say that, philosophically speaking, I probably have more respect for people who take scriptures literally (as compared with people who pick and choose), I would say that I can’t disagree with them more. And yes, these people are still bigots, even if they hide behind their ancient religious texts.

One of the worst liberal ideas of our time is that we have to tolerate all views. Not all views are equal. Religous views should not be afforded any kind of respect simply because they are religious and people really, really believe in them. Ideas and beliefs don’t have rights.

Thanks for adding that postscript. It’s true since his comments, Hardaway has become a LGBT advocate. However, after his crystal clear statement, one wonders how much his true opinion has changed. In any case, his initial hateful comment is exactly the type of attitude that LGBT people have to deal with, even if he has changed his views.

“One of the worst liberal ideas of our time is that we have to tolerate all views. Not all views are equal. Religous views should not be afforded any kind of respect simply because they are religious and people really, really believe in them. Ideas and beliefs don’t have rights.”

Someone believing something stupid shouldn’t be afforded respect, it should be dismissed and harshly.

And lets be honest. ‘Disapproval’ of someone’s sexuality is too similar to disapproving of someone for having no legs or disapproving of their skin color. It is simply changing words in an effort to justify an untenable position. It’s just hate. I can ‘disapprove’ of someone’s religion, though, because that’s a choice. Religious affiliation is fully optional.

Statmandu, I’m not going to pile on other than to say that there are significant anti-gay hate crimes that occur in every major city in the United States. Crimes that are condoned, encouraged, applauded, and defended by parents and preachers, ignored and marginalized by businesses, organizations, law enforcement, and government.

On the issue of representative samples, it’s true that population level statistics do not necessarily apply to subsets. But consider that it might be HIGHER.

[…] that he will find his way onto an NBA roster this season. Both of these truths are not new; I covered both in April. But there’s something else you should know about Collins: he wasn’t the first openly […]